Review The Last Arrow

Xun is a lone archer who trying to get rid of an ancient threat that’s trying to take over her land. In The Last Arrow for Android, you’ll play as Xun in a top-down shooter that will have you trying to survive for set amounts of time, or defeat a certain amount of enemies.

The concept in this game is actually pretty great, and I was excited to dive in and play. Then I started moving my character around and become almost immediately frustrated. There are two joysticks: one will move your character while the other turns them. The left joystick also needs to be pressed in order to catch the arrows of your enemy. This is a crucial component to the game because you have no arrows yourself, so in order to defeat enemies you’ll need to catch their arrows first. It also acts as the best layer of defense you have. Arrows can’t touch you if you grab them out of the arrow.

The arrow mechanic works fine, but the shooting mechanic falls flat on its face. In order to shoot, you need to double tap the joystick that also controls where you aim. As you might guess, this will make you swing around wildly almost all the time. In the cons I’ve listed this game as difficult, but the controls are what makes this game truly difficult.

Gameplay wise, you’ll fight enemy after enemy, and it’s all pretty fine. There are some enemies that will launch arrows you can’t catch, but are easily defeatable. The biggest problem might be that there are so many enemies on screen sometimes that you’re constantly stuck defending rather than shooting. In times like these, aiming is absolutely everything because wasting an arrow means wasting a limited opportunity.

The Last Arrow would be a great game if the controls were better. In its current state, it’s almost unplayable for me. I made it through a handful of levels before I just couldn’t progress any further due to the game’s poor controls.